The Fury Out of Time (11 page)

They talked again. Whistler, so blunt and caustic in English, seemed expansive and congenial in French, but Jacques was not easily persuaded. The submachine guns had impressed him.

“It’s a long walk, and it’d be tough-going even in the daytime,” Whistler said. “He doesn’t think you can make it.”

“I’ll make it.”

“He’s willing to try if some of his men will come along. I guess he figures they may have to carry you.”

“They won’t, but he can bring all the men he wants. Did you offer to pay them?”

“Doggone well, for a walk in the woods.”

“Then let’s get started.”

Whistler drove the truck into a barn, and the three of them got into Jacques’s tiny car. It started up with a roar all out of proportion to its size.

“That motor isn’t original equipment,” Karvel observed.

Whistler nodded. “I think Jacques is a part-time smuggler.”

Four hours later Karvel lay on the ground at the edge of the forest, looking down at a brilliant circle of light. The three dark tents stood out starkly. Somewhere beyond, hidden by the darkness, were the mortal remains of St.-Pierre-du-Bois. They had walked for nearly an hour across rough ground and up- and-downhill and through the forest, and Karvel felt utterly exhausted.

He also felt completely disheartened. He had expected guards, but not a full company of infantry, and he had not reckoned at all with the light. Naively, he had envisioned a stealthy approach through the darkness, and the overwhelming of a bored sentry or two.

The thing was impossible. Even if they got the diving equipment down to the tents, he still had to pass it through the U.O.’s hatch, assemble it inside, get into it, set the instruments by memory, and throw the switch—and with no assurance that there was any fuel in the U.O., or even that the instruments would be in place. The sentries were alert, and had weapons they knew how to use, and they couldn’t be expected to stand around picking their teeth while all that was happening.

He had no right to lead Whistler or anyone else into deadly danger with such a minute chance of success. He said firmly, “It’s impossible. Let’s forget it.”

Jacques hissed for silence.

“By the time we get within a hundred yards of the U.O., we’ll either be dead or captured,” Karvel whispered. “One would be as bad as the other. I’ve heard that the inside of a French prison isn’t nice.”

“What do you want to do?”

“We’ve known from the beginning that this expedition was a silly idea. Now we know just how silly. Let’s find ourselves a place to stay, and we’ll talk it over in the morning. If it still looks as stupid as it does right now, we’ll go home.”

Whistler whispered to Jacques, who spoke softly to the three men crouched behind them. They helped Karvel to his feet, and started away. Karvel had not moved ten feet when he bumped into a tree, stumbled over a bush, and went sprawling.

Instantly a shout rang out.
“Halt-la!”

One of Jacques’s men darted away, scrambling noisily along the edge of the forest. A flashlight beam flickered after him, and another challenge was shouted a short distance to the east. They froze where they were, and waited. The valley was suddenly alive with lights and movement. Flashlight beams searched the hillside. A squad of soldiers clumped noisily past, and broke into a run when shots rang out where Jacques’s man was hotly pursued.

“Let’s get out of here!” Whistler hissed.

He took one of Karvel’s arms, and Jacques took the other. Crouching, blindly feeling their way forward, they moved back through the trees. Machine guns rattled again, and a volley of stray shots whipped past them. Finally they staggered over the crest of the hill, and the sounds of pursuit faded.

They did not pause until they had topped the next hill, when Karvel shook off his support and sank panting to the ground. Jacques and Whistler conferred in whispers.

“Lucky for us that someone ran for it,” Karvel muttered.

“At least
that
plan worked,” Whistler said with satisfaction.

“Plan? You
planned
that?”

“Just in case. I promised Maurice a bonus if he brought it off. I hope nothing happened to him. We haven’t come a mile yet. Maybe we better get moving.”

“I don’t think they’ll follow us through the forest. They don’t know we won’t shoot back.”

“Jacques thinks they’ll set up more roadblocks as fast as they can. By the time we get back to the car they may have us boxed in.”

“Like you said, we’d better get moving.”

They struggled forward again. The slopes were endless and steep, the ground underfoot uneven and treacherously sown with obstacles, the night totally black. For some time the alarms and confusions of the valley continued to reach them faintly, but the shooting had stopped. Finally they reached the cars and found a grinning Maurice waiting for them. Karvel gave him a firm handshake, and Whistler called for a flashlight and solemnly counted out the bonus.

Jacques held a short strategy conference. They had to negotiate two miles of narrow, rutted forest track to reach the road. The question, Karvel gathered, was whether to tear out of there at top speed with lights blazing, or to try to sneak out without lights—which would take infinitely longer. They voted for speed, piled into the two cars, and were off.

They bounced recklessly along the zigzagging track without incident until they rounded the last turn and saw, where the arching trees met the highway, a waving flashlight. Jacques growled something that would have been profane in any language, and pumped a signal with his brake pedal.

“I hope you have a plan for this,” Karvel remarked.

“From here on, it’s their plan,” Whistler said.

At the road they veered sharply to the right and came to a stop. The car behind them pulled alongside, veering to the left, and the two young soldiers stepped forward innocently. They had not even unslung their weapons. Suddenly spotlights struck them in the face, and the cars roared off in opposite directions. Karvel tensed himself and waited for shots, but none came.

“I guess we’re in good hands,” he said dryly.

“That’s just the beginning,” Whistler said.

At the next crossroad they took another roadblock by surprise. It was set up to stop southbound traffic, with a car parked across the highway; they passed it going west, and skidded around the car on screaming tires. Again there were no shots, but Karvel looked back a moment later and saw headlights following them.

For the next ten minutes Jacques drove the narrow, meandering road with furious confidence, negotiating curves with a recklessness that made even Whistler wince. They tore through a village, made a screaming turn, and thundered along a straightaway. The lights did not gain on them, but neither did they seem to lose ground.

Jacques spoke excitedly. Whistler answered, and turned to nudge Karvel. “He’s worried that we’ll hit another roadblock. He thinks he could talk his way out of it if we weren’t with him. We’ll get out at the next village.”

“Sure. Ask him if he’d mind slowing down.”

“He’ll stop. You just be ready to jump.”

A cluster of dark houses flashed past, and then a larger cluster with a crossroad. Jacques suddenly cut his lights and braked to a stop with his handbrake. Karvel and Whistler scrambled out, and he drove straight ahead without lights. They hurried toward the nearest house and took cover behind a parked car. Seconds later the other car approached, slowed at the crossroad, and impulsively turned left. Whistler gave a grunt of satisfaction and plucked at Karvel’s sleeve.

They felt their way around to the rear of the house. Whistler knocked softly, knocked again, and then tried the door. It opened. He pushed Karvel ahead of him, stepped inside, and closed it.

They heard footsteps approaching. The light went on. They were in a kitchen, and facing them at the other side of the room was the fattest woman Karvel had ever seen. She was clothed tentlike in a faded nightgown, and she determinedly pointed the rifle one of her ancestors had carried in the war of 1870.

For a moment she stared at them. Then the rifle crashed to the floor.

“Bertie!” she squealed, and hurled herself at Whistler.

They spent the next day in a dusty garret. A dark cloud scudded overhead, wept whimsically onto the streaked window, and passed by. Another followed, and another. The unheated room was chill and damp. Karvel decided that he did not like France.

Late in the afternoon Jacques drove up, followed by Maurice in Whistler’s truck. Jacques was abjectly apologetic. He hadn’t expected to encounter sentries so close to the forest

“Did your men get away all right?” Karvel asked.

Jacques shrugged. Their car had received four bullet holes when they ran through a roadblock, but those were easily fixed. Did Karvel wish to try again that night? Or perhaps that afternoon?

“Try what?” Karvel demanded.

Jacques waved his hands triumphantly. The soldiers were gone, he said, and so were the roadblocks. He had driven straight through the valley and found it deserted. Now Karvel could take all the pictures he wanted.

“In that case, we can manage by ourselves,” Karvel said. “Pay him off.”

“I already paid him,” Whistler protested.

“Give him a bonus for keeping his mouth shut.”

Jacques accepted the money delightedly, shook hands with both of them, and drove off with Maurice. Karvel and Whistler left immediately, but not before Christine, their bulky hostess, gave Whistler a parting hug that made his eyes pop. She tearfully waved good-bye as they drove away.

“So that’s your taste in women,” Karvel said. “I’ve always wondered.”

“She didn’t used to look like that. When the light went on I didn’t even recognize her. I thought it was her maw.”

“How come she recognized you?”

Whistler gave Karvel a wounded look. “
I
haven’t changed!”

They circled back to the St.-Pierre-du-Bois road and turned north. A thick drizzle was falling. Whistler drove slowly, and the
^-
distance seemed far greater than Karvel remembered it.

“They may not all be gone,” Whistler said. “Are you sure it’s wise to barge right into them?”

“We’re just a couple of dumb foreigners trying to get to Strasbourg. We’ll ask for directions, and see what’s going on, and then we’ll decide what to do.”

They topped the last hill, and Whistler stepped on the clutch and let the truck coast. The shapeless mass of the stricken village lay in the valley below. There were no sentries—and no tents.

Whistler steered the truck off the road, and Karvel flung his door open and reached for his crutches. He swung himself awkwardly over the soft ground toward the square imprints where the tents had crushed down the weeds. At the center of one was a churned hollow where the U.O. had rested.

Karvel stooped, picked up a piece of cardboard. Under it was moist, pungent earth and an earthworm slithering away from the light.

He did not know whether to weep or curse. Whistler said nothing.

Karvel wrenched a crutch free from the ground, and turned back. Whistler hurried ahead of him to open the door of the truck. “What do we do now?” he asked.

“As I said before, it was a silly idea to begin with. Let’s finish our vacation.”

Chapter 7

The Mediterranean was a vast azure mirror tilted toward infinity. Karvel, stretched out peacefully under a beach umbrella, projected his thoughts at the horizon. He saw a shadow merge abruptly with the umbrella shadow, but he did not bother to look up.

Gerald Haskins said peevishly, “Just where the devil have you been?”

“Following orders,” Karvel said. “Taking a vacation.”

Haskins crouched beside him, and hissed, “If you had any idea of the trouble I’ve had finding you—”

“What I particularly enjoy,” Karvel said, “are the cloud reflections. If only someone would keep the gulls away, the scenery would be perfect. I hate to see gulls messing up cloud reflections. It makes me think of a beautiful woman with fleas.”

Haskins sat down heavily. “Why didn’t you get in touch with me?”

“I did. I sent your office a picture postcard the day I got here. I said, ‘Having a wonderful time, wish you were here,’ but I didn’t expect—”

“My men don’t usually report by picture postcard, and some idiot probably filed it in the wastebasket. A luxury hotel in a little French resort town is the last place I expected to find you, and it’s just about the last place I looked.”

“To each his own taste, but why did you bother? Sooner or later we’d have run out of money, or gotten bored, and headed for home.”

“Good God, man! Don’t you read the papers? Don’t you pay any attention to what people are talking about?”

“I can’t read French, and neither can Whistler. He can talk the stuff like crazy, but he can’t read it. He isn’t much interested in literature anyway.”

“Where is he?”

“He’s found an illegal bistro with a female bartender. She fascinates him. He hangs out there twelve hours a day, studying philosophy.”